Following indications yesterday that more accounts were being granted access to the Diablo III beta test, the Diablo III Website announces the beta will indeed be opened this weekend to anyone with a Battle.net account for stress testing. The open portion of the beta will begin at 3:00 pm EDT today and will run through Monday at 1:00 pm EDT. The accompanying FAQ explains how this will operate, and notes that while Korean players cannot participate, they will be holding a separate invitation-only event in Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. The invitation only closed beta will continue as planned until May 1st. To get a head start, you can download the client now from Battle.net.

RollinThundr wrote on Apr 23, 2012, 15:20:I'd be willing to bet they have server que's day one for people just wanting to play single player. That seems to be the Blizzard way.

The thing people need to understand is that this game has no singleplayer mode. You can solo WoW to the level cap but it is still not a singleplayer game. Same here.

That argument has been debunked several times. Few of the social features nor the gameplay world require a persistent connection. The world itself isn't even persistent like WoW. It's strictly protection features that underpin the game - things like the AI and item generation are all handled server side. It's understandable design choice given their RMAH stuff but likewise it's quite understandable for people criticize their choices. Particularly people who frequently travel or are in organizations like the military.

They didn't want to underwrite offline functionality so they can take their licks for any release day woes that happen, fair is fair.

And as it's been pointed out before, there's absolutely no reason they couldn't have an offline version where your characters are never permitted to go online. That would solve the cheating issues by that avenue and give offline gamers what they want. They chose not to do that, so that will cost them some sales from those folks that can't play online.

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell (I think...)